The Postcard Motel
A place for chrome motel & roadside smorgasbord postcards from the 50s, 60s and 70s – and, as of 2025, maybe some other postcards as well.
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Well, we weren’t always so innocent. More here.
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My postcard of this was dated September 15th, 1944 but was unsent and unaddressed – just a short blurb about “We had dinner and saw broadcast. Pictures taken of people dancing. Food was so good & place beautiful. – Mom”.
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Goddamn it. The Rib Room!! To be back in 1955 and dancing at the Rib Room on a Saturday night.
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“A truly ‘different’ place”, as it says. Carpet/flooring is to die for.
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Sometimes a photo like this one tells you more about the late 50s/early 60s than any historical blatherings. The close-cropped conservative haircuts on the men; the button-down leisure shirts (all still selling in vintage stores to this day); the weird thing where advertisements would put certain words in quotation marks for no reason, i.e. “Best by “taste” test).
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A bygone era if there ever was one – where adults would pay to see an owner’s “funny hats”, drink to excess, and taste his wife’s “bohemian dishes”, which I assume to refer to the renown food of Central Europe.
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Hold on – these guys have Dutch Meals?? Stop the car!
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Everything about the design here speaks to me. The sign colors, the scoreboard, the see-through shade grids. The motel, alas, is now gone.
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It’s still around! Not $5 any longer.
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Hadn’t been aware that Howard Hughes’ holdings extended to rural motels in Indiana, but what do I know? “Your hosts, Bert and Louise Stegerman”.
The Postcard Motel 